Published 9:54 pm, Thursday, September 5, 2013

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., stops short of calling it arm-twisting.

But when President Barack Obama telephones a freshman senator and member of his own party at home on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend -- just as Murphy was cleaning up after a barbecue in Cheshire -- he wants something. In this case, Murphy's support for a resolution authorizing the president to order U.S. airstrikes against Syria.

Murphy wasn't biting.

"I don't think the White House was counting on my vote when they made the decision to bring this before the Senate," Murphy said in an interview Thursday. "This is a very unique vote that you only cast a few times in your career. This is a matter of war and peace."

Eight months into his first term, Murphy suddenly finds himself caught between an immovable object in the commander in chief and an unstoppable force in the form of widespread public opposition to air campaign against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Murphy and New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall broke ranks with their party Wednesday, voting with the minority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the resolution. Seven other Democrats supported the measure, which is scheduled to be taken up by the full Senate next week, provided there isn't a filibuster.

"I'll be honest, this was a close call for me," Murphy said. "I think the administration makes a very strong case that we need to uphold a longstanding international red line on the use of chemical weapons. I worry we will actually make the situation more chaotic on the ground with these strikes."

A message seeking comment from the Obama administration was left Thursday at the White House.

The political winds appears to be at the back of Murphy, who, earlier this year, co-sponsored a pending bill with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., seeking to block the U.S. from arming Syrian rebels.

The White House must come up with 60 votes in the Senate to cut off an anticipated filibuster and to allow the resolution to get an up or down vote, a parliamentary procedure known as cloture.

In a move that doesn't put him completely on the outs with the Obama administration, Murphy said he will vote for cloture.

"I'm not going to engage in a filibuster with Republicans to stop a debate from happening," said Murphy, who served three terms in the U.S. House before he was elected to the Senate last November.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., characterized the lobbying by the Obama administration, which has arranged multiple policy briefings for members of Congress, as aggressive.

"It is definitely a full-court press," said Himes, who is leaning against military strikes but is not completely decided.

Hailing Murphy for his stand against the president is the political left, including Jim Dean, chair of the million-member liberal grassroots organization Democracy for America. The Fairfield resident is the brother of Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and a 2004 presidential candidate.

"We can't have enough freshman senators who are willing to stand up to ask the questions that have to be asked about this," Dean said. "I think the days of people being elected to the Senate and sort of disappearing for the first six years are over."

Since Murphy was assigned to the foreign relations panel, he has been flanked on the meeting room dais by Udall and Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, a former governor and former DNC chairman who is close to Obama.

"Though there were times that we felt a bit isolated in the caucus, it's good to have someone else to lean on when you might hold a minority position," Murphy said of his rapport with Udall.

But Murphy did not get any political cover from the Connecticut Democrat whose anti-war stand catapulted him to prominence. Ned Lamont, who rode a wave of opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq to victory in the 2006 Democratic Senate primary over incumbent Joe Lieberman but lost the general election, said Thursday it would be a terrible mistake to do nothing in Syria.

"I hope Chris Murphy and Dick Blumenthal and our representatives in Congress, all of whom are hesitant to decide, weigh the facts but then give the president the authority he needs," Lamont said. "This is a guy who's not rushing to war and looking for a pretext to go to war. He's not going to allow this to be a slippery slope."

The Greenwich Democrat compared the situation in Syria to the first Gulf War, when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

"It's closer to George Herbert Walker Bush to me, who committed America with broad international support, and who defined the mission to not let American troops march all the way to Baghdad, which is what some wanted," Lamont said.

He spurned comparisons between the civil war in Syria and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"We got burned on Iraq and they're going to make darned sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

Ultimately, Lamont said Murphy is not in a position of leverage with his party's leadership in the Senate or the Obama administration.

"I think it's a question of war and peace," he said. "It doesn't get solved by funding for a bridge. I think it's a moral vote up or down."